“To illustrate how well the French military aviation service is organized and supplied with machines, let me tell you of my experience at the front in Lorraine, where one day I had the misfortune to break one of the wings of my machine. Instead of stopping to have it repaired, all I had to do was to turn it into a supply station near by where it was at once dismantled and sent to the rear. I was then promptly supplied with a new machine. A change of aeroplanes by an aviator in action in France is like a cavalryman changing his horse. If there is anything the matter with the animal, even if it is only a corn, a new one is at once forthcoming. There is no suggestion of parsimony or niggardliness in giving out the supplies necessary for efficient fighting. “On another occasion, when we were making a raid on the railway station at Douai, which was about twenty-five kilometres within the enemy’s lines, we started with a squadron of some twenty machines. There happened to be that day a great many German machines out. Somehow or other they knew we were coming. We had four or five brisk engagements with them. Our planes had only machine guns with which to defend themselves, while the Germans used regular fighting machines. This aerial engagement resulted in four of our machines coming back riddled with bullets, my lieutenant being hit in the leg. “I was fortunate enough that day to escape the range of the German flying machines by going farther north and passing through the clouds, though I was shelled from a long distance all the way. I succeeded in dropping my bombs on a railroad station, one of which I saw explode in a bunch of freight cars in the railroad yard. As I was returning within our lines the Englishmen, by mistake, opened a brisk fire on me which necessitated my going up into the clouds again. I proceeded due west until I ran out of gasoline and I then descended in the dark near the headquarters of the English. It was my good fortune to land safely and on my arrival at my post I was brought before the English commander, who asked me to tell my story. Mine being one of the four machines out of twenty that had reached Douai in the raid, I was awarded a citation and given the right to wear a War Cross—my first decoration.